Omen Threat Meter

Basically, enemies in WoW decide who to attack by deciding who is the most threatening based on the abilities you use. What Omen does is provide accurate values of your group's relative threat level on individual enemies, so that you can see when you're in danger of pulling aggro (or, if you're next on the snack list if your tank bites it). This info is usually only critical in raids, where only tanks can survive aggro, but it's useful for any multi-player situation.

FAQ

How is Omen3 different from Omen2?

Omen3 relies completely on the Blizzard threat API and threat events. It does not attempt to calculate or extrapolate threat unlike Omen2 except when Tricks, Misdirection, Mirror Image, Fade and glyphed Hand of Salvation are active.

Omen2 used what we called the Threat-2.0 library. This library was responsible for monitoring the combat log, spellcasting, buffs, debuffs, stances, talents and gear modifiers for calculating each individuals threat. Threat was calculated based on what was known or approximated from observed behaviors. Many abilities such as knockbacks were just assumed (to be a 50% threat reduction) as they were mostly impossible to confirm.

The Threat-2.0 library also included addon communication to broadcast your threat to the rest of the raid as long as they were also using Threat-2.0. This data was then used to provide a raid wide display of threat information.

Since patch 3.0.2, Omen no longer does any of these things and the need for a threat library is no longer necessary. Omen3 uses Blizzard's new in-built threat monitor to obtain exact values of every members threat. This means Omen3 has no need for synchronisation of data, combat log parsing or guessing, resulting in a significant increase in performance with regards to network traffic, CPU time and memory used. The implementation of boss modules for specific threat events (such as Nightbane wiping threat on landing) are also no longer necessary.

Further benefits of this new implementation include the addition of NPC threat on a mob (eg, Human Kalecgos). However, there are some drawbacks; frequency of updates are much slower, threat details cannot be obtained unless somebody in your party/raid are targetting the mob and it is also not possible to obtain threat from a mob you are not in direct combat with.

How do I get rid of the 2 vertical gray lines down the middle?

Lock your Omen. Locking Omen will prevent it from being moved or resized, as well as prevent the columns from being resized. If you haven't realized it, the 2 vertical gray lines are column resizing handles.

How do I make Omen3 look like Omen2?

Change both the Background Texture and Border Texture to Blizzard Tooltip, change the Background Color to black (by dragging the luminance bar to the bottom), and the Border Color to blue.

Why does no threat data show on a mob when I target it even though it is in combat?

The Blizzard threat API does not return threat data on any mob you are not in direct combat with. We suspect this is an effort on Blizzard's part to save network traffic.

Is there ANY way around this Blizzard limitation? Not being able to see my pet's threat before I attack has set me back to guessing.

There is no way around this limitation short of us doing the guessing for you (which is exactly how Omen2 did it).

The goal of Omen3 is to provide accurate threat data, we no longer intend to guess for you and in the process lower your FPS. Have some confidence in your pet/tank, or just wait 2 seconds before attacking and use a low damage spell such as Ice Lance so that you can get initial threat readings.

Can we get AoE mode back?

Again, this is not really possible without guessing threat values. Blizzard's threat API only allows us to query for threat data on units that somebody in the raid is targeting. This means that if there are 20 mobs and only 6 of them are targeted by the raid, there is no way to obtain accurate threat data on the other 14.

This is also extremely complicated to guess particularly for healing and buffing (threat gets divided by the number of mobs you are in combat with) because mobs that are under crowd control effects (sheep, banish, sap, etc) do not have their threat table modified and addons cannot reliably tell how many mobs you are in combat with. Omen2's guess was almost always wrong.

The tooltips on unit mouseover shows a threat % that does not match the threat % reported by Omen3. Why?

Blizzard's threat percentage is scaled to between 0% and 100%, so that you will always pull aggro at 100%. Omen reports the raw unscaled values which has pulling aggro percentages at 110% while in melee range and 130% otherwise.

By universal agreement, the primary target of a mob is called the tank and is defined to be at 100% threat.

The threat updates are slow...

Omen3 updates the threat values you see as often as Blizzard updates the threat values to us.

In fact, Blizzard updates them about once per second, which is much faster than what Omen2 used to sync updates. In Omen2, you only transmitted your threat to the rest of the raid once every 3 seconds (or 1.5s if you were a tank).

Add option to choose what sound channel to play warnings on, default is SFX (thanks tharai).

Add fixes for MoP patch 5.0.4 (thanks dridzt).

Removed compatibility code for older versions of WoW. This version now only runs in MoP.

Changes from version v3.1.5 to v3.1.6

Multiply the threat values reported by the WoW Servers in Dragon Soul instance by 10 because they are scaled by 10%. This fixes MI/Fade/Tricks oddities and reported TPS values.

Changes from version v3.1.4 to v3.1.5

Remove code that causes divide by 0 for future WoW updates/PTRs.

Show the "Hide Minimap Button" option if the button is ever registered with LDBIcon instead of trying to check whether FuBar or FuBar2Broker is loaded.

Changes from version v3.1.3 to v3.1.4

Omen will no longer create a second unremovable minimap button for the players that have other installed addons providing the LibFuBarPlugin-3.0 library but are not using FuBar.

Changes from version v3.1.2 to v3.1.3

Optimize CLEU codepath for 4.2 instead of 4.1 now that we are in 4.2. That is, the 4.2 forward compatibility code is now 4.1 backwards compatibility code.

Rearrange initialization code slightly.

Changes from version v3.1.1 to v3.1.2

Fixed issue where some players are unable to see any threat text on the bars until the current profile or TPS option is changed. The fix also fixes issues with some bar settings being "reverted to default" on login.

Fix bar backgrounds not being set to the inverted color on login if the "Invert Bar/Text Colors" setting is on. This wasn't noticeable if the bar label color was the default white text with 100% alpha.

Changes from version v3.0.7 to v3.0.8

Fix GetShapeShiftFormInfo() error that occurs for DKs when they aren't in any presence. This occurs when they respec between their primary/secondary specs and the game drops them out of all presences and subsequently enter combat presence-less.

Fix Omen getting stuck to the mouse if autocollapse is on and you moved Omen while you are in combat and exited combat during the move.

Set a player's threat to 0 (for display purposes) if the player's threat is less than 0. This occurs on Fade and Mirror Image, which gives the caster a temporary threat reduction of 410057408 (or 4.1m threat in Omen's terms). Previously Omen ignored players with negative threat.

Omen will now remember its visible state when you log out (applicable only if auto-show/hide is off).

Changes from version v3.0.3 to v3.0.4

Update ruRU, koKR and zhTW localizations

Fix "Passed X% of Y's threat" message where it would report your name instead of the tank's name if you passed your tank's aggro AND pulled aggro at the same time

Changes from version v3.0.2 to v3.0.3

Update various localizations. esMX will now see the same translations as esES

Add LSM callbacks so that the user can use custom media or media registered by other addons correctly

Allow the user to have different background settings for the Title Bar than from the main Omen window

Changes from version v3.0.1 to v3.0.2

Update various localizations

Fix error that occurs on changing Clamp To Screen option

Add option to change the Pet Color and changed the default Pet Color to violet

Omen will no longer create its internal minimap button if FuBar or Broker2FuBar are loaded

Fix bug which caused ghost bars to show when some classes are not selected to be shown

Add Tank Bar color option

Add "Always Show Self" option

Add Show/Hide Title Bar option

Add Use Focus Target and Test Mode checkboxes into the configuration panel

Add Show Aggro Bar option

Make Test Mode much more useful by showing bars of every possible class and the player

Fix minor issue where the TPS numbers are 1 pixel higher than the rest of the text on the threat bars

Hard embed LibDataBroker-1.1 and use it

Add LibDBIcon-1.0 external

Add minimap button option, default shown

Fix Omen's FuBar plugin issue for right clicks to open the configuration panel interfering with library upgrading paths

Rewrite Auto Show/Hide options to be more intuitive. Add option not to use Auto Show/Hide

Add an internal flag so that if the user manually toggles Omen's visibility, it stays shown/hidden until he next zones, join/leave a party/raid, or change any Auto Show/Hide settings

Add option to ignore player pets to display threat info on (Default: On). Yes, player pets have aggro tables too!

Add Frame Strata and Clamp To Screen options

Apply a whole list of configuration settings that were forgotten on changing profiles

Updated the FAQ

Changes from version RC2 to RC3

Renamed localization\deDE.lua to Localization\deDE.lua so that the auto-generated zip file will contain the folder "Localization" rather than "localization", which means Omen will now work on non-Windows operating systems

Changes from version RC1 to RC2

Add keybind to toggle using the focus target

Fix missing localization entry for "Passed %s%% of %s's threat!"

Add option to color your own threat bar to a color of your choice

Fix "VGrip1Ratio" error that occurs when completing a drag and Omen incorrectly attempts to hide itself.

Originally posted by Wulfstryke ok.. I have been noticing an issue with this version of Omen, I am not sure if its a bug or not but this is whats happening and maybe someone can help me. I have a hunter and I have the Core hound from Azuremyst Isle. When i set my pet to attack a mob there is no read out of what the aggro my pet is getting untill I physically make an attack on the mob.. then i see both our aggro's.. now normally I used Omen to judge when I should start attacking the mobs so i dont pull aggro from my pet.. but without seeing the aggro before i attack kinda makes it difficult to judge.. is this a bug or is there a way to fix it? thank you in advance for any help given..

ok.. I have been noticing an issue with this version of Omen, I am not sure if its a bug or not but this is whats happening and maybe someone can help me. I have a hunter and I have the Core hound from Azuremyst Isle. When i set my pet to attack a mob there is no read out of what the aggro my pet is getting untill I physically make an attack on the mob.. then i see both our aggro's.. now normally I used Omen to judge when I should start attacking the mobs so i dont pull aggro from my pet.. but without seeing the aggro before i attack kinda makes it difficult to judge.. is this a bug or is there a way to fix it? thank you in advance for any help given..

Wow I didn't expect such a quick and detailed response, thanks! I "guess" I'll just have to get used to it. It does make plenty of sense to have it tied into the actual in-game threat meter rather then the way it was before, sounds like we'll get more accurate results with less memory usage overall.

Originally posted by ecmst12 Is there ANY way around this Blizzard limitation? The most useful thing I used Omen for before was to make sure my pet has generated enough aggro to hold the mob before I fire my first shot. Not being able to see this has set me back to guessing

There is no way around this limitation short of us doing the guessing for you (which is exactly how Omen2 did it, by scanning everything you, your pet and your raid did in the combat log and guessing how much threat each ability did, then modifying the guess by scanning your spec/gear/buff/debuff threat modifiers, then further checking to see if they got resisted, parried, immuned, etc).

As you can imagine, that's a lot of guessing. And a lot of data to keep track of, there's thousands of spells and abilities in the game and growing every patch. And it gets worse, since some spells have side effects. How much threat does your lacerate really do if your target is immune to bleeds? To tell you the truth, we don't know either, the formula on wowwiki is wrong.

When bosses have threat reduction abilities, we... you guessed it... we guessed that they reduced the tank's aggro by 50%, and coded it so. Apparently the guess was correct for most bosses such as Void Reaver and Gurtogg Bloodboil. Specialized boss modules that modify threat were needed.

There were a lot of things Omen2 didn't even attempt to account for as well. It is known that healing/buffing threat is divided equally among the mobs you are in combat with. But not if some of those mobs are sheeped/banished/sapped/gouged. Crowd controlled mobs gain and lose no threat, its as if they weren't there at all. To make things worse, even if there were 20 mobs around you, you could only be in combat with just 10 of them, we don't know. Healing threat is simply... wrong. All the time.

Another thing Omen2 didn't even account for is buffing threat. We simply ignored it, the amount of threat caused is 2 digits at best, and when everyone is doing thousands and millions of damage, it is insignificant.

Well basically, we no longer intend to guess for you and in the process eat up your Frames Per Second. Have some confidence in your pet/tank, or just wait 2 seconds before attacking.

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When patch 2.4 came out, you might have noticed that Omen underwent a week of instability and backwards incompatibility. The reason was that 2.4 introduced the ability for the combat log to unique distinguish mobs of the same name.

What was 1 ghoul and 1 crypt fiend in the past (in Hyjal) became 10 ghouls and 4 crypt fiends. The amount of threat data to send/receive among the raid multiplied several fold, and the traffic volume was sufficient to disconnect many people by Blizzard for flooding.

Hence compression of data before sending it, and decompression on receiving was necessary. Due to bugs in the decompression code, bugfixing these necessitated backwards incompatibility. More so, Blizzard's addon communication system is such that every addon receives every single addon message; addons then check to see if the message originated from the same addon in order to decode it. A big portion of your CPU time went towards doing this. Even if you didn't use KTM, if one person was using it and transmitting KTM data, everyone else in the raid is receiving these data (and then discarded).

How is this relevant to your question? Simple, we have no intention of syncing threat data either, so your Main Tank in the raid isn't going to send threat data to you just so that you can see his threat that 2 to 5 seconds before you engage.

Even Recount no longer syncs data during combat, it only syncs data minimally after combat has ended.

Why does no threat data show on a mob when I target it even though it is in combat?
The Blizzard threat API does not return threat data on any mob you are not in direct combat with. We suspect this is an effort on Blizzard's part to save network traffic.

Is there ANY way around this Blizzard limitation? The most useful thing I used Omen for before was to make sure my pet has generated enough aggro to hold the mob before I fire my first shot. Not being able to see this has set me back to guessing

Originally posted by Spudnik I think that the developer of Omen had a chance to test it in WotLK so yeah. Other news: WotLK will, as you all know have an embedded threat detection system, so that maybe you can use omen without others having to use it to work.

right, if you have omen, then the ohter people do not need to have it for you to see their threat b/c of the built in threat meter

Omen 3 is WOTLK ready and will, most likely, be released for download today or tomorrow. Unfortunately I suspect it will be posted on Curse first since it really comes from Wowace (and they've just been merged). I hate Curse! The search sux and it is hard to navigate (not to mention that they don't put WOTLK badges on addons etc etc etc).

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